Twisted Games of Revenge (Sinners of Ravens Hollow #3)

Chapter 22

As soon as we hop in Alessandro’s car, I pull out the ear cuff and turn it off. I don’t want Sloane or her brother to hear this conversation. She has already heard enough today, and now I have more questions for him. Burning questions that are going off like lightbulbs in my head.

Alessandro takes off up the road, and I feel how dreadfully my hands are trembling. I feel odd. Scared that what we have had is somehow not real because of what Connie was saying. “What are you into?” I spit out, not sure what I think he will tell me. But I need to know because I can’t go through another high tea, garden party, or charity function with the likes of Connie Chambly not knowing the truth.

He glances at me sideways but remains silent.

“Fucking Connie, Mrs. Mayor, was all like, ‘I guess you will see when you marry him.’ You know what, she thought that your fucking papa had purchased me for you so you could do whatever sordid things you wanted to me. She came right out and said it like it was fucking normal.”

A low growl escapes him, then he pulls the car into a space on the side of the road and kills the engine before turning to me, the vein in his neck pulsing.

I stare back at him, not losing my bitchy edge. “What?” I snap. “What else have you been hiding from me?” My eyes plead with him to come clean on it all. I can’t stand this anymore. Not knowing what will be said next time I bump into one of these people, feeling like I’m in the dark.

He drops his head, then he reaches out and intertwines his fingers with mine. My body stiffens, not sure what I’m about to hear. “Before you, I was on the same trajectory as my papa.”

My eyes narrow in on him, in a don’t-mess-with-me stare. “What the fuck does that mean, Alex?”

“It means all you see is a fucking world crafted meticulously by my papa and the men he associates himself with. He doesn’t just control the casino, some businesses, and the drug trade. He controls it all. Nothing happens in this town without his say-so. Nothing. All the women in that room would have either been bought for their high-profile husbands or traded by their papas. And until two years ago when I met you, I saw nothing at all wrong with it. I was prepared to blackmail your papa so I could make you mine because I decided I wanted you to be. I didn’t care what you wanted. I knew how powerful I was, and any girl would be lucky to be mine, because it’s what I had been told my entire life. And then Marco told us your papa had traded you to Carlo D’Amico, and it flipped my world upside down.”

I can feel the anger radiating through him. “And what, you realized how fucked up this all was?”

“I didn’t want some other asshole to get his hands on you. Enzo Moretti hates women with a fucking passion, and from the moment I was born, he ingrained that same philosophy into me. But you changed me. Your sweetness, your innocence, and for the first time, I realized what he had told me my whole life was just some fucked-up lie because he hated all women.”

“What about Valentina? They have been married a very long time, and he is clearly fond of her,” I throw back at him.

His laugh is harsh and dry. “She spends her days drinking away the pain. She’s great at putting on a show for her friends and this town to make it look like she’s happy with her life and in love with her husband. But she’s just another one of his possessions. She does as she’s told or faces the consequences. She wasn’t much of a mother to any of us growing up. How could she be when he degraded her right in front of us any chance he got. I have seen my parents do things no child should have to see. We all have, princess. It was his way of controlling us all.” His dark eyes meet mine, and I know that’s exactly what happened. Then he looks away, staring out the front windshield like a lost little boy. Minutes pass, but I don’t know what to say.

Something in his haunted expression makes me feel like I’m seeing him for the first time. The real Alessandro, not the man he pretends to be around everyone else. I know he’s not a good person and has done terrible things, but still, my heart aches for him. “You’re not him,” I whisper for myself as much as for Alex.

“I’m not a good person, princess. I have spent my entire lifetime learning the ropes from my papa. I have killed men without a second thought because he gave the instruction. I have destroyed lives all in the name Moretti. This shit was ingrained in me from the youngest age. We make sure all men fear us and all women fall at our feet.” He sucks in a ragged breath, looking at me like he wants to say something but he’s not sure he can. He slams his hands against the steering wheel. “Fuck, you want to know what my thirteenth birthday looked like? I was fucking forced to kill my papa’s right-hand man. Enzo had him strung up, and he wanted me to put the final bullet in his head to prove how much of a fucking man I was.”

My eyes go wide, horrified for him. “Did you do it?” I whisper, not sure I want the answer.

His expression turns blank. “I was told to, so I did. I didn’t ask why he had suddenly turned on the man who had been his closest associate my entire life. I called him uncle for fuck’s sake. I just shot him right between the eyes like I had been trained to. And then he was dead.”

I gasp in shock, covering my mouth.

“You want to know what that proud family moment earned me? My first screw. With a fucking escort my papa had selected for me from his elite club. I was fucking thirteen.”

I feel sick for him, little Alessandro, he was just a baby, and he was expected to be a man and deal with shit no one should ever have to. My heart races at the injustice, wanting so badly for Enzo to pay for the shit he’s done to all of his sons. “Is this why he got you that therapist? The one who said you have control issues?”

His eyes come back to me. “Did he tell you that?”

I nod. “At dinner the other night, he said you have issues, and if I want to marry you, I will need to be able to cope with them. Right before he told me you like to share your girlfriend with your brothers, and I would need to be okay with it if I was to go through with our deal.”

He runs his hands through his hair, tugging at the ends. “He’s fucking unbelievable. I never had a therapist, princess; he would send me to his club and tell me to fuck my out-of-control rage out of my system.” His haunted eyes come back to mine, and for once, I don’t want to know what he’s reliving in his head. “What Connie said today was out of line, but you will hear more than that the longer we keep up this charade. I have done so many things I’m not proud of, Harley.” His expression softens, the harsh lines around his eyes melting away as he glances back at me, I think hoping I can understand who he really is.

“Fix them then. Make a change. You’re in charge now, not Enzo, and we need to make him see that things are different. He has no power over you anymore.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“This shit again. You’re not backing out of our deal now. I will fucking destroy all of them with or without you,” I say in a panic. My heart is racing, and fight-or-flight is kicking in and I need to run. I go to open the car door but the handle won’t open. I realize he has the child lock on and me trapped. I turn back to him, my eyes narrowing in. “Let me out of the fucking car.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” he says, panic coming over him.

“I’m warning you, Alex,” I snap, on the verge of losing it completely. I need to run or to kill his motherfucking papa right now because it feels like my heart is going to explode with the pain now lodged in my chest, and I need it to go away. I need to feel normal again, and with every new detail I hear about this awful man, I feel more out of control.

With the simple press of a button, he releases the door handle, but his expression tells me not to test him.

Right now, I don’t give a flying fuck about that. Immediately, I swing the door open and storm out of the car. I have no idea where I’m going, all I know is I need to get away from him. It’s fucking one step forward two steps back, and every time, I feel like I’m giving him too much of myself to get nothing in return. Yeah, okay, so he opened up to me and told me the twisted shit his parents did to him when he was a child, but he can fix this now, and he’s still holding back, I can tell. I stomp down the road, my heels wobbling on the uneven asphalt.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I sense him right behind me, like a shadow. “What are you doing?”

“Walking home,” I huff.

“You’re going the wrong way.”

Fuck, I spin around and start walking in the other direction.

He reaches out and stops me, a hand to either side of my shoulders so I can’t move, his fingertips pressing in roughly.

I don’t look up at him, I can’t. Unshed tears burn in my eyes. “Let me by,” I whisper, so close to falling apart completely here on the side of the road.

“I can’t, princess, it’s not safe out here.” His voice is softer than I expect it to be, not demanding but caring.

I suck in ragged breaths, trying to get my racing heart under control. Then I slowly raise my head to meet his dark gaze. “How can you let them get away with all this? What they did to you. What they did to your brothers. You have as much reason to hate them as anyone in this town. Fucking more.” The tears fall now, trickling down my cheeks. I can’t stop them. I keep seeing him as a poor helpless child, and it chills me to the core. His parents are pure evil.

“What Enzo created, what you saw today, is years of tradition and rules. His grandfather started all this, and his papa built on it, and finally he took it to a whole new level. While the big players are all still here protecting him, nothing can change. It doesn’t matter what my title is. I thought it would, but that was just another step of him getting what he wanted. Forcing me to fight him until I was the one in charge because he fucking wanted me there. They want me tied down with you, so you can give them an heir. Someone new to corrupt who will keep this all going. Until you, it was like no one even questioned any of this. It was the world we grew up in, the one we thought was normal. Until you, I didn’t care to see any other type of reality for myself. Now I want more. I don’t want the fake shit they all have. I want something real.”

I stare up at him, my heart racing in my chest. With his thumbs, he wipes away my tears. But it’s not enough. No one can take away the pain lodged in my chest when I think of all the destruction Enzo has caused.

“I’m going to help you. I’m going to do everything in my power to destroy all of them. But this is going to get worse before it gets better. You will continue to hear all the terrible things I have done, and you will hate me by the end of this. If you don’t already.” His haunted eyes reach mine, chilling me to the core. He really believes I could hate him.

I reach up to touch his face, running a hand through his stubble. He’s so broken. And why wouldn’t he be, growing up in his broken family. It’s surprising he has any capacity to love or even care about anyone at all. “I don’t hate you, Alex. I don’t understand you, but it’s not hate I feel for you.”

“You should. I know why you don’t really want to marry me, and I understand. I’m not good enough for you. I never have been, and I never will be. Not when I stole your innocence or when I kept you locked up, trying to force you to be mine.” His finger traces over my lips. “I should have left you alone. You never would have been trapped in this life if it wasn’t for my selfishness.”

My heart feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest it’s beating so damn hard, because I can feel his pain, and I want to be the one to take it away. I fucking know he’s not perfect. But who is? What impresses me about him is that he is trying to make a change. He can see what he’s done is wrong. Unlike his papa. “I was trapped in this life from the moment my mother agreed to be one of Enzo’s spies. This isn’t on you. This is on our parents. But we will fix it, and if we can’t, I’m going to die trying.”

“I fucking love you, princess.” His lips crash into mine in a desperate kiss, our tongues battling as his hands sweep into my hair and he holds me like his life depends on it. I kiss him back with as much desperation. I know he’s broken; we all are. But together, we can really make a change for the better and undo some wrongs of the past.

When I finally pull back, breathless and panting, I offer a half smile and huff out a laugh. “I fucking love you too, Alex Moretti.”